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Topic: Ebola! From whence did you come? (Read 1414 times)

I had an 80-year-old JW come to my door the other day out of the blue. A very pleasant fellow, but it didn't take me long to get exasperated with him, especially when he tried to tell me that the Ebola virus was created by people not washing their hands. The interesting bit was, he was trying to tell me that his god created everything that we see here and now (creationist nut), and I pulled him up on his Ebola bollocks by pointing out that if his god didn't make it, then it must have evolved through bad hygiene, as he stated. He started backtracking then.

So the crux, where did the filo-viruses come from? Did god make them? If he did, why? If he didn't, then did they evolve? Where they on the ark? (My JW friend reckons bacteria and viruses started to exist after the flood, and I smacked him down by pointing out that the flood was supposed to have destroyed every living thing, so how did germs survive if they weren't on the ark?)

What was god thinking when he made Ebola?

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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Take 1 original sin (must be original).Marinate the sin in talking snake blood for 6 days.On the seventh day, cook it in 7,000 degrees Celsius flames of hell. Keep flipping it, to avoid it being burned out of existence before Jesus comes to take it away.Add one act of sexy time between Adam and Eve.

Let it cool for 6000 years.

Bam, you have Ebola.

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Q: Why are quantum physicists bad lovers? A: Because when they find the position, they can't find the momentum, and when they have the momentum, they can't find the position.

Did he mention that the reason people didn't wash their hands was because they have no clean water or soap or sewage systems or other basic hygienic needs? What evolved isn't ebola, but the indifference of millions to the suffering of other millions.

What has evolved is the human propensity to not give a shit about anything not directly involved with our gathering of wealth. Poor people who won't ever be able to buy the gadget my factory makes in China? Screw 'em.

But yea, JW who wants to voluntarily introduce the concept of evolution for one specific disease and dismiss it for everything else is just as useless as a JW who don't want to admit evolution at all. Science isn't something to accept only when it helps your back story.

He was thinking of Job, and how awesome it is to garner praise from entities regardless of how badly you treat them or how much you ignore them.

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

Thinking like a creationist, I suppose that certain microbes and bacteria could have survived the flood in the bodies of all the people and animals which perished, then micro-evolved further in what was, no doubt, a feast of rotting flesh and other organic matter afterward. There's scope there for all sorts of nasty diseases to arise.

Thinking like a creationist, I suppose that certain microbes and bacteria could have survived the flood in the bodies of all the people and animals which perished, then micro-evolved further in what was, no doubt, a feast of rotting flesh and other organic matter afterward. There's scope there for all sorts of nasty diseases to arise.

Uh uh, creationists don't get to use the word 'evolved'... Also, I'm pretty sure the flood was supposed to kill EVERYTHING.

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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Thinking like a creationist, I suppose that certain microbes and bacteria could have survived the flood in the bodies of all the people and animals which perished, then micro-evolved further in what was, no doubt, a feast of rotting flesh and other organic matter afterward. There's scope there for all sorts of nasty diseases to arise.

Uh uh, creationists don't get to use the word 'evolved'... Also, I'm pretty sure the flood was supposed to kill EVERYTHING.

They do manage to deal with micro-evolution for the most part, which bacteria to bacteria, germs to germs, etc, would probably not send them into conniptions. And if it enabled their story to hold together better, I think they could manage to exclude microbes from the "EVERYTHING" definition.

Uhhh. Wasn't the whole point of the flood to get rid of all the evil in the world? Of course it didn't work. People got evil again right away.

Maybe it was because of all the germs god left lying around. We know that certain illnesses (like syphilis and rabies) can cause people to act crazy and do bad things. So, why would god let all the disease germs fester and spread? That does not seem like a plan for making the world less evil.

It is almost as if almighty god did not know that microscopic organisms existed-- and could cause disease. That could not be true, could it?

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When all of Cinderella's finery changed back at midnight, why didn't the shoes disappear? What's up with that?

Back in the day, this topic was a favorite ongoing stoned conversation. I remember concluding that "God is a mad scientist" was the most reasonable explanation our stoned brains could come up with. 20+ years later, it still fits better than any BS I've ever heard from a true-blue believer. It explains pretty much everything if Earth is the equivalent of a giant petri dish.

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"Tell people that there's an invisible man in the sky that created the entire universe and the majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure." ~George Carlin

The nasty viruses come out of rainforests from rats and monkeys, due to human encroachment, and poor hygiene.

Some famous ones are Hanta, Machupo, Marburg, Ebola, HIV.

The reason why they are so lethal, is due to the recent nature of the expansion into humans, due to their recent insistence in penetrating new habitats and then dwelling in rat poo.

With time, either the virus adapts to humans, to be less lethal, or humans adapt to the virus. The black plague in Europe shows a lot of signs of being one of these viruses, rather than yersinia pestis.

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When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be bleedn obvious.